Concluding credit agreements 30% faster

Loans for people and companies

Santander Consumer Bank – the bank on loans is part of the Spanish Santander Group, present in Poland since 2001. Its offer includes a wide range of loan products for individual customers and entrepreneurs. It sells them through 321 branches and a network of cooperating outlets – more than 27,000 stores and markets and 1,000 car showrooms and dealerships.

Digitisation of the loan contracting process

The dynamic development and high volumes of sales of financial products made Santander Consumer Bank look for a solution that would digitize the process of concluding loan agreements. The institution wanted to increase the speed, efficiency and convenience of nearly 30,000 advisers of commercial partners who serve 350,000 customers. customers per year. He also wanted to improve the quality of service and streamline the existing "paper" circulation of documents, which was not only time-consuming, but extended the time of issuing decisions on granting a loan or its withdrawal. This required the use of IT solutions compliant with eIDAS, an EU regulation specifying requirements for electronic signatures and transactions. To implement this project, the bank chose Asseco Data Systems (ADS), the leader of the trust services market in Poland. The company was responsible for implementing trust services and providing full support, which covered technological, legal and organizational aspects.

Asseco's qualified security and trust services

The first part of the project, which began in December 2019, was to analyse the existing loan contracting process, as well as to determine Santander Consumer Bank's needs and requirements for the new system. It had to meet the high security requirements of the delivered products, so that the components implemented in the bank's infrastructure would ensure full confidentiality of the signed credit agreements.

The project included the implementation of Asseco's security and trust products and services, including:

• Trust gateways (Signature and Validation) used in the signing and validation process, respectively, along with components for advanced one-time signatures;
• Dedicated web application to enable electronic signatures on credit agreements;
• Advanced one-time SMS signature for authorisation of contracts by customers;
• Qualified seal in SimplySign service to authorise contracts on behalf of SCB;
• Qualified validation services.

After the main work on the system was completed, a pilot was carried out with a selected group of sales partner advisors. In the next stage, Santander Consumer Bank, in cooperation with Asseco, began a gradual implementation of the new solution across the entire sales network.

The project was conducted in SCRUM methodology, which means that successive elements of the solution were delivered incrementally and iteratively. This allowed the client to verify the progress of the work at each stage.

The electronic credit agreement process has been launched across the network in November 2020. It was implemented by the combined teams of Santander Consumer Bank and ADS, each having 20 members.

The 'Voice of The Customer' survey of 345 Santander Consumer Bank advisors with digital signature capabilities, conducted using CATI, found that the implementation of an electronic sales process has reduced the time to conclude a credit agreement by 30%. It has also contributed to improving the quality of the advisory work done in the bank's partner network, with as many as 80% of advisors emphasising the ease of use of the new process, and 40% express appreciation for the ability to conclude a credit agreement without using a single sheet of paper.

Efficient, secure, and digital sales process

• Relieving the backoffice
• High level of security
• Faster credit decision
• Full data confidentiality
• Reduced paperwork
• Easier sales management
• Increased quality of the services provided

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